


Different At Night

by The_Lake_King



Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [3]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Angst, Fetish, Jealousy, M/M, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:15:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29160273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lake_King/pseuds/The_Lake_King
Summary: Prompt 3. "I might have slept with your robe/shirt/etc. while you were gone."Thomas goes on a trip. Jimmy steals his pillowcase.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137182
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37
Collections: Well I love you: Valentines for Thomas Barrow





	Different At Night

**Author's Note:**

> TW: There's a reference to very mild breath-play.

“I expect you to be a model citizen and have a girl on your arm when I get back,” said Thomas, smiling at him. The awful thing was that Jimmy knew that he meant it, just like he had meant a similar injunction when he had departed for America.

Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly sound. Everything was fine. Thomas was in Paris, doing God-knew-what with God-knew-whom, and Jimmy was stuck in Yorkshire, doing his best to follow instructions. Every day, from sun-up to sun-down, he dedicated himself to the endeavor. Results were mixed, to say the least.

It was different at night.

In the darkness he could be free to feel as he felt and be as he was. It was a deal that he had made with himself a long, long time ago. He was free to be bereft, jealous, and angry. Free to ruin his liver, pacing back and forth in the narrow space of his room with a pilfered whiskey bottle dangling from his fingers. At night, he pulled out the pillowcase. It always came back to the pillowcase.

There had been nothing else for it. All of Thomas’ clothes were on the continent. He needed something small, something he could snatch up and hide in his livery jacket before all the bedding was laundered. Ergo, footman steals pillowcase. Why he needed something that smelled like the under-butler was not a question that bore daytime examination. At night, it didn’t need to be asked because the answer was so obvious. 

He had a ritual. First, remove the pillowcase from the drawer where it lived. It was as much to preserve the smell of stale cigarettes and man (it had truly lasted about a week, but Jimmy was very good at convincing himself there was still something there) as it was to hide the thing. After all, there was nothing terribly suspicious about a man having a pillowcase. Next, run his hands over it, lay it out flat atop the covers like he was about to press it. Trace the seams with his thumbs. Think about Thomas’ stubble-roughened cheeks tugging at the tiny threads as he tossed and turned in his sleep. Imagine that he dreamt of them together. Put his hands inside, stretch it across them like a tent. Smell it, long and deep, rubbing his face against the fabric where the other man’s had been. Slide it over his head. Draw it snug about his neck so his breath sucked through the thin fabric that pressed against his lips. Imagine his hand belonged to Thomas.

When he was finished, before he closed his eyes, he would say: “Come back and get your fuckin’ pillowcase.”

His fear was that Thomas would not come back. That he would find something better over there, something that was big and shiny enough to hold him. A place. A job. A lover. That he would never write, leaving Jimmy to wonder. He tried not to dwell on the image of Thomas spinning through one of _those_ clubs with a stranger. The stranger was handsome and brave. Smooth. Rich. Cultured. He could play piano better than Jimmy and was _just_ common enough to be interesting instead of vulgar. An artistic type, who was in Paris for the same reason that Thomas ought to be.

Jimmy hated the stranger with a passion that made him want to get drunk first thing in the morning and break the Crawleys' family heirlooms. But that was daytime, and in the daytime he was a model citizen. Sort of.

He could have screamed when Thomas came back, smirking about “what the French are like.” Dead, was what they were like in Jimmy’s mind. That or some colourful abstraction that haunted him at night, threatening to take away the unacknowledged centre of his world. He was not a model citizen that day.

When darkness fell, he came to Thomas’ room.

“Jimmy?” Thomas' braces hung against his thighs. 

“I might have slept with your pillowcase while you were gone.” He held out the offending item, not sure whether he expected the under-butler to take it or not.

“Alright.” The gears were turning behind furrowed brows. Not fast enough. “And why—”

Thomas never finished his sentence. The pillowcase lay forgotten on the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> I originally thought this was going to be cute. Apparently it is angst o'clock somewhere.


End file.
